Unemployment a Lifeline, Not a Crutch

In a recent poll, 81 percent of job seekers agreed that extending unemployment benefits does not discourage job seeking. In fact, the opposite is true.

Six Month Extension

An historic and heated U.S. Senate vote in July, followed by a quick approval by the House, lead to President Obama signing an agreement only hours later, extending unemployment benefits to millions of out-of-work Americans for an additional six-month period. (Read the full news article on the Washington Post.)

'Word on the Street'

We asked our readers to weigh in via Facebook comments. Here's what some had to say:

"Thousands of people are living on the brink of homelessness. If we take away the life-line of unemployment many won't have anything left to keep them afloat," says Lisa Green. Green considers herself lucky to find work after losing her job. She is now a Homelessness Prevention Case Manger at a community action program.

"Thankfully, I'm not there at the moment, but I was - and being able to feed my family 'while' job searching is critical," says Jack Duncan.

"No, it does not," says Abigail Costello. "Some of us are genuinely looking for work."

"It's actually pretty depressing," says Cathy Roch. "Anyone who thinks people on unemployment have it made, walk in our shoes for a week."

Join the Conversation

For a full listing of comments on this topic and to join the conversation, please visit our Facebook pages in ME, NH, VT and RI.

Margaret Hansen has been writing professionally since receiving a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Maine. She has worked for multiple organizations as a weekly newspaper reporter, a weekly newspaper editor, and in a variety of internal/external marketing communications roles. Her freelance career has focused on writing and editing for print, email and web publications in the employment industry, as well as manuscript editing and resume writing.